


teatime

by enamuko



Category: Nightside Series - Simon R. Green
Genre: Gen, spoilers for The Good The Bad and The Uncanny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 08:28:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6277120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enamuko/pseuds/enamuko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Old traditions between old friends often withstand the test of time, particularly when one of the friends is dying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	teatime

**Author's Note:**

> A relationship I wish had been elaborated more in the books. Although I could say that about most relationships in the Nightside series. sigh.

 

No matter how hectic his life became, no matter what horrors worked their way into it, Walker lived by one simple rule: always make time for tea.

The tea house was a small, private affair on a side street that was only there for people who knew where to look. Though not as exclusive and members-only as his preferred lunching locations, it suited his purposes just fine. The waitress was polite and only appeared when she was needed, rather than bothering him constantly about whether he needed anything. The tea was acceptable— not fantastic, by any stretch, left to brew for a bit longer than it should have been, but nothing he could find the will to care about. And most importantly, it was quiet. What few other customers were there kept to themselves, spaced out too far around the tea house for their conversations to be heard.

Walker wasn't there to socialize, or have a good cup of tea. He was expecting someone.

The chime above the door rang, but he didn't need that to know his guest had arrived. He had felt him coming, like a storm, a tidal wave, a force of destruction that couldn't be slowed or stopped. Customers began to shake without knowing why. Furniture seemed to shudder back from the approaching presence. Walker simply sat there calmly, drinking his tea, not looking at the door. He had an image to maintain, after all.

Hadleigh Oblivion slid into the seat across from him, his motions inhumanly fluid, and smiled a truly terrifying smile. Walker met his eyes, smiled easily, and refused to allow his hands to shake at all as that dark unblinking gaze burrowed into him. Some of the other customers and staff were staring in their direction, with mixes of fear and excitement— everyone in the Nightside loves a free show— as they waited for the other shoe to drop.

They stared at each other for a few long moments, and then burst out into vibrant, friendly laughter.

Both of them stood and leaned across the table to hug each other and pat each other openly on the back, to the shock and awe of the onlookers and the general relief of the staff that they wouldn't have to clean up any sort of mess. It was an obvious reunion of old friends, and if either of them was reluctant to let go, well. The other certainly wasn't going to say anything about it.

The tea house had mostly settled back down, choosing to ignore the odd sight in favour of convincing themselves someone had slipped something into their tea while they weren't looking and were now simply hallucinating. Both Walker and Hadleigh sat back down, staring at each other over the tea Walker now realized was going to go to waste.

"Henry."

"Hadleigh."

"You look well."

"So do you. Particularly for a man who should be in his eighties." Walker's eyes flicked over Hadleigh's form, taking it all in. He'd been expecting something.. _different_ from the man he had once known, so many decades ago, but reconciling just _how_ different was another matter entirely. "Relatively speaking, of course."

Hadleigh laughed a concerningly cold and empty laugh that would have sent a chill up Walker's spine if he were a few decades younger and less experienced. His job had numbed him to such things, something he was thankful for every day. It honestly made things so much easier when he didn't have to steel himself to deal with horrors on a daily basis. It would have required far too much extra work.

"I'd heard you were coming back, but I wasn't sure whether or not to believe it." Henry ignored the tea, reaching instead for the plate of biscuits that he had ordered to offer one to Hadleigh. The eldest Oblivion brother held his hand up to politely decline and he set the plate back down. "After thirty years, I had assumed you'd finally grown some sense and decided to stay away from this cesspit."

"No need to get nasty, _Walker_." The way Hadleigh said his title made it sound affectionately patronizing, but since _he_ had once been the one who held it, he couldn't be too mad at him for it. Instead he simply gave him a disapproving frown. "This is where I grew up, after all. And my family is still here."

"Most of them, at least." Henry almost immediately felt a twinge of regret in his chest for the unnecessary dig, but he kept his face carefully neutral. Luckily Hadleigh didn't seem fazed by it; in fact, a little not-quite-smirk twitched at the corner of his mouth very briefly. "Is that the reason you're here?"

"One of them, yes," Hadleigh replied, reaching for the second teacup Henry had ordered with his pot of tea and helping himself to a steaming cup. "Larry and Tommy never could manage themselves without me there."

Most people would have taken that comment at face value. Henry saw the self-depreciating sarcasm behind the words, because he knew the man speaking them that well.

There was a heavy silence between the two of them for several long moments. The news he had to give Hadleigh weighed heavily on Henry's mind, but it refused to make itself known, his tongue feeling almost swollen in his mouth. Admitting one's own mortality was rarely an easy task.

"You don't need to say anything, Henry," Hadleigh interjected, interrupting his complicated inner thoughts. "I already know."

Walker couldn't help it; he smiled, as brief as it might be. That was the Hadleigh he knew; the man who always seemed to know everything, and pretended he did even when he didn't. It was where _he_ had learned the skill, after all. Though nowadays he assumed Hadleigh leaned more towards knowing and less towards pretending.

"That's another reason that I'm here," Hadleigh added, sipping at his tea seemingly without a care in the world. "It's been thirty years since we've last seen each other, after all."

Henry nodded, nibbling on a biscuit and idly staring just over Hadleigh's shoulder. His brain was working overtime trying not to focus too much on the fact that they were talking about his imminent and inevitable death. You could deal with horrors every day, but a man's own mortality would always be a frightening thing.

"Do you know when it happens?" It was a difficult question to ask. On the one hand, knowing would certainly alleviate the constant pressure he always felt to get everything done before the end inevitably snuck up on him. On the other hand—

On the other hand, perhaps it would be for the best if it was sudden. If he didn't spend his last days constantly waiting for the axe to fall.

Hadleigh smiled at him in a way that suggested he had forgotten the proper way to smile, but was trying quite hard for his sake. It was almost heartwarming in its own quite weird way. "I don't, Henry. I'm sorry." He folded his hands politely on the table, fingers clasped in an almost business-like manner, a façade which broke when he reached out and laid his hand across Henry's. His skin was cold, and the colour of it made even his pallid tone look robust and bursting with life. "There are simply too many variables to account for. Too many possible futures. No matter what people say about you, you've never been a terribly predictable person."

Henry smiled back, as forced as it felt. "I understand. I suppose it's beyond even _you_ to know _everything_ that's going on, though you've certainly always tried."

"You've always been better at it than me," Hadleigh replied, reaching for his tea again. "These days I only ever claim to know the fundamental nature of reality. _Human_ nature is far too complicated for me."

They shared a smile between old friends or at the very least they tried to. Walker wasn't sure whether he felt relieved or even more burdened than he had started out, but he knew he was glad to see Hadleigh. Even if they never shared another kind word after the two of them left this teahouse, he wouldn't have to live however long with the regret of not being able to say goodbye to the mentor that had both ruined and saved his life at different points.

Henry's relationships in the Nightside had never been simple affairs.

"How long are you going to be here for?" he asked almost conversationally. Hadleigh gave a shrug.

"Until I finish everything I came to do, and not a moment sooner." It was such a _Hadleigh_ response that Henry couldn't help but bark out a laugh, which didn't seem to startle him in the slightest. Perhaps he wasn't nearly as different as he had been expecting. "And that could be a very long time indeed. In my long absence I had forgotten how corrupt this place can be when it puts its mind to it. Some house cleaning would do the place some good."

"I would tell you to stay out of trouble, but I doubt that would do much good. You wouldn't listen to me anyway."

"No, I wouldn't," Hadleigh replied honestly. "You have such a short view of what constitutes trouble. And I work for a higher power these days."

"I think you would find the Authorities a lot more agreeable these days, particularly since your brother is one of them." He had picked up another biscuit without thinking about it, but rather than eating it he was simply crushing it between his fingers into a neat pile of crumbs.

"Which gives me all the more reason to never go back to working for them. No one wants to work for their younger sibling." It was a joke, Henry knew. Not just because Hadleigh said it with a small twitch of the lip and a certain lilt of the voice, but because the idea of Hadleigh ever returning to the job of Walker was unthinkable in its own right. It had nearly killed him once. "But I'm glad to hear you think I would approve of them. I would have hated to have to intervene."

"I doubt my opinion would stop you either way," Henry sighed, pushing the plate and his crumb masterpiece away from him. "I'm glad we got this chance to chat, Hadleigh, but I'm sure you and I are both extraordinarily busy these days. I really should be heading out." He adjusted his hat and suit jacket, making sure there wasn't a hair out of place before he wandered out into the Nightside at large. Image was everything, after all.

"Duty and responsibility," Hadleigh said with a solemn nod. "I understand. Do take care of yourself, Henry."

"I suppose I'll be seeing you around?" He knew he was trying to delay his departure, but he could hardly help it. Being Walker meant you could allow yourself very few close relationships. Few people could really understand the weight the job had for the people who held it.

Another little smirk that wasn't quite right. "I'm sure you will," Hadleigh replied. "Sooner or later."

Henry tipped his hat to Hadleigh as he hung his umbrella from his elbow, keeping his eyes straight ahead as he walked out of the tea shop.

He didn't have time to be looking back, after all.


End file.
